Corn….Sweet…..Corn
Farmboy LOVES his sweetcorn. So when buying seedlings for a summer garden, I purchased 3 punnets of sweetcorn seedlings. I was *hoping* to manage to get at least 10 cobs of sweetcorn from them, knowing that would about cover my costs. While I would *like* to actually save some money on my grocery shopping through growing some vegies in the garden, my main purpose has been to provide fresh, organic produce to feed my family.
Well, so far the sweetcorn seems to be doing well. Given I’m pretty new to all this gardening stuff, I’ve been trying to keep my expectations fairly low so that I’m not too disappointed if things fail. Every time Farmboy goes outside, I think his mouth starts watering at the sight of the sweetcorn plants and the anticipation of juicy, fresh corn to eat.
I’m not sure if this photo is really going to do justice to the plants but I’m estimating they’re around 6 foot high (they’re certainly taller than me and I’m just over 5 foot). At first I was worried that I’d planted them TOO close together but they seem to be fitting okay and I know they need to be reasonably close in order to pollinate one another.
You should be able to click on the photo if you’d like a larger view. I didn’t take it at the best time of day but it gives you a bit of an idea. I’m not actually sure how many sweetcorn plants we have (I didn’t count them!). I did do a rough count of how many cobs we have growing at the moment and it’s around 40!!!! Yippee!!!!
Sweetcorn is one of the few things I buy frozen so I’m hoping to freeze some of the cobs to use throughout the year. We’ll see how many get that far!!!
Now I have a question for you, my wonderful and knowledgable readers. How do I know when a cob is ready to pick? Is it when the hairy part kind of browns off? I don’t want to pick them too soon (they seem a little on the thin side at the moment) but neither do I want to wait too long.
In other gardening news, the zucchini continues to do well. Leighton made a comment to me last night that it was one plant he was hoping would NOT do well. LOL. But I am in LOVE with zucchini roasted on the bbq. And the zucchini we had steamed with dinner last night was honestly the BEST zucchini I think I’ve ever tasted!!!! I must have picked it at just the right time. I’m also planning to grate and freeze some (I hope) to use in spaghetti bolognese throughout the year.
Here’s the zucchini I picked yesterday. It’s over a foot (ruler length) long!!!! I have no idea what they do to the zucchini’s in the shop but they seem so SMALL in comparison. At the moment I’m picking one every couple of days. When the blackjack zucchini’s get larger I think we’ll run into a bit of a glut. But not too much I don’t think. I don’t have a LOT of zucchini plants in.
I have a few pumpkins growing on 1 vine while a couple of other varieties haven’t flowered yet. The tomatoes are fruiting but seem very slow. I did add potash but I think the highly nitrogenous water has made them very bushy. I even tried to trim them a few times (cull a few branches so they weren’t so bushy) but they still look rather overgrown. Fingers crossed we still get enough tomatoes from them to make it worthwhile.
I have a few apple cucumbers almost ready to pick but I don’t know what happened to the green cucumbers I attempted to grow. They haven’t really come to anything I don’t think. So far the strawberries have been disappointing….we haven’t had a lot of fruit. I’m not sure they’re getting enough water.
We’ve had a couple of fairly severe heat waves so at the moment I’m just glad I haven’t lost the whole garden. Next summer I need to be more careful about how much I cram into a small area. It’s probably been a good thing in some ways as they plants are kind of shading each other. However, it’s making access to them rather difficult and I think there’s a fair bit of competition for what water we are able to give them.
I’m just happy to have had at least some success. I still can’t believe how much fun I’m having!!!!
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Your vege garden sounds and looks like it’s coming along well.
You have a lovely garden. I’m very envious of all that delicious sweetcorn!
Corn is ready to pick when the corn silk (tassels) turn brown and dry. That’s the first sign. Then carefully test out a sample ear to see if it is fully formed and ready. Leave the ear attached to the stalk and carefully pull the husk down a couple of inches from the top of the ear. If the kernels are fully developed all the way to the tip of the cob, gently push your fingernail into one at the top, and if a bit of milky juice comes out, it’s ready. If it’s not quite ready, carefully pull the husk back up onto the ear of corn and try again in a day or 2.
If you find that only 1/2 of the cob has fully formed kernels, and the rest to the top are unformed then that just means you had incomplete pollination. Every piece of silk is a sting to a kernel, so all the silks need to be fertilised to get all the kernels to form. If you find a half-formed cob, and the silk have dried and gone brown, still test the lower down kernels for the milky juice. If the lower kernels are ready then pick the cob, as the other kernels wont be forming if all the silk are brown.
To pick the cob, grab it lower down on the bulge near the stem, pull down and twist it smartly and it will happily pop off into your hand. Well, mine do!
If you find that the kernels have formed, but they are shriveled, it means the corn plant didn’t get enough water. Corn, like tomatoes, are very thirsty critters.
None of my corn has ever made it to the house. We always eat it straight off the plant. Really delicious. However, if you want to cook it, put the big pot of water on to boil, when you have a good rolling boil, go pick your corn and run back to the kitchen and shove it straight in. It won’t need long.
Well done on such a lovely garden,
Poppy
Just don’t do what I did with my corn last year and leave it too late.
By the time I finally picked them, they’d gone as hard as rocks. We boiled those suckers for an hour and they were still too hard to bite into!!!
(I decided not to grow any this year….)
The new site is on its way…. Thanks for the email.
Gary - thank you
Marita - fingers crossed it turns out to be delicious!
Poppy - thanks for that info, that’s great. I was just thinking after I’d posted this that I should have asked the best way to pick it as well so I appreciate your detailed response.
Frogdancer - thanks for the warning. That would be me!!! I look forward to the big announcement.
Well done on your garden Lightening, it looks fantastic
I’ve got a stuffed zucchini recipe up today,dead easy and the kids love it
who was hoping your zucchini wouldn’t grow so well?
Oooh sweet corn! I lurve sweet corn!
SO jealous of your garden, but I’m the worlds. worst. gardener. I kill weeds!
I am jealous! I can not get Blackjack Zucchinis to grow. I have lost 10 seedlings in about 2 months. As such I have given up on it for now. I will try it again once I have moved to Wollongong.
I do though have 1 large Lebanese zucchini doing well. I enjoyed its large white fruit in a stir fry on the weekend. Like you it was the sweestest, juiciest and best tasting zucchini I have eaten. A lot of it due to it growing in my own garden.
I also have sweet corn planted and it will be getting moved around once we move into some much deeper tubs. We should be moving soon else I will end up with stunted corn.
Well done on the garden and I wish you a continued success.
The garden looks great. I would love to grow corn but just don’t have enough room. My poor garden is looking rather sad now after a massive clean up session yesterday. Need to get out and plant some more seeds now.
Libby
Congratulations on your apple cucumber. I’ve never been able to grow any type of cucumber. I once had a self grown seedling that I thought was a cucumber growing out of my compost, it turned out to be a rockmelon which grew a single fruit a bit smaller than a tennis ball and extraordinarily sweet.
Your sweet corn looks amazing. I was all set to tell you about testing and picking, then read Poppy’s comment and all the information is there. Cooking time for such fresh cobs should only be about a minute or so.
The only thing I know about corn is make sure it doesn’t go ‘pine-apply’ I.e. if your corn starts to look as if it has got an identity crisis and wants to be a pineapple, you’ve lost your corn. This is an indication of not enough water and too much sun. I think someone above pointed out that corn needs lots of water.
Good luck!
Jayne - I remember my mum making stuffed zucchini. Not sure how I’d go getting my family to eat it though…..
Bettina - Leighton is the nickname I’m using for my 10 year old son. Must get around to adding the list to my sidebar. Is that what you meant by your question?
Kin - killing weeds is a very highly desired skill you know!!!
ShadowKnight - thanks. I guess some things grow better in some areas than others. At the moment it’s very much trial and error for me. Is there something special about blackjack zucchini that you particularly wanted to grow it? I just happened to grab a punnet of seedlings in that variety from the hardware store. Good luck with the move! I’ll be happy if I NEVER have to move house again!!!! LOL
Libby - yeah, you have to pick and choose a bit based on what you can fit and what the family will eat. I’ve got quite a few plants in a reasonably small space though (can’t remember the exact dimensions now though).
River - I hope they turn out to be nice. I’m the only one in the family who’s ever eaten apple cucumber (my grandmother used to grow it).
Maggie - interesting analogy with the pineapple. Fingers crossed we’ve given it enough water as we don’t have HEAPS of water to give it.
Ah thats right!! I need a list of your aliases sitting next to your posts!! lmao
I’m impressed
Anybody willing to grow anything gets my vote. My grandpa had the green thumb in the family. DH cuts everything right back and I mean right back - yet they seem to grow beautifully. I haven’t yet convinced him to do vegies though. I suppose if he had some help……………oh well *sigh*
Bettina - I’m hoping people will get used to the names as I use them more.
Boneblower - I remember my MIL being horrified at a bush my DH cut back from our front yard (we rented from them). She thought he had ruined it. Not so. It grew back so much more beautiful than ever. And in a very short space of time! Same thing happened when we moved into his parents place on the farm. They had an apricot tree that had never fruited and they didn’t believe ever would. DH but it back quite severely and from then on it has fruited. He’s never got into vegie gardening though. I always thought I had a brown thumb. *shrugs* Go figure! I think it’s a little bit of time, a little bit of interest and some practise and anyone can garden. Oh, and good soil is a must!!!